


325. madhouse

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [219]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-09-21 22:38:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9569810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: Amelia dies. Helena lights her flare gun. Sarah runs.





	

**Author's Note:**

> [warning: helena beating the crap out of sarah]

Amelia sighs one last time, long and ragged, and Helena lights the flare. “ _Moya sestra_ ,” she croons. “My twin.”

Amelia’s skin is rapidly cooling under Sarah’s hand. On the staircase Helena looks like a nightmare, lit up red and burning. The light catches and holds on the hollows of her eye sockets.

Again: she looks like a nightmare. So Sarah follows nightmare-logic.

Which is to say: she runs.

Her boots tear up the floor and she’s holding the envelope Amelia gave her so tight it’s crumpling in her fists and she’s running. Behind her there’s a clatter – Helena dropping the flare? – and then the lazy sounds of footsteps in pursuit.

“Sarah,” Helena calls, her voice echoing off the rafters. _Saaaraaaah_ , a voice from the bottom of a well. “Where are you going? You came all this way to see us, sister. Are you going to run away now?”

Sarah doesn’t answer. She dropped her flashlight back there and she’s too focused on trying to find the way out in the dark. She keeps her back to the distant red light of the flare. God, she wishes Helena had kept it; at least then Sarah would be able to see her by that glowing. As it is she’s running blind, and Helena can just follow her. Just follow her anywhere, easy.

She imagines the shape of Helena in the dark. Is the shape really that different from the reality? The ghost-image of Helena’s hair. The drag of her footsteps. Her eyes blank. Her hands open, empty, pleading.

But that’s only an imagining. Helena is behind her – must be behind her – is somewhere behind her, certainly. Sarah runs until her lungs scream and then keeps running. Looming shape in front of her: pillar. She almost smacks her face into a drawing of her and Helena holding hands. The scribbling is frantic; it looks the way her heart feels, drawn out like a polygraph line. Equally frantic: the scribbled-out shape of Helena crawling out of her cage.

Helena holding her in the belly of the ship, shaking. _I love you._

Helena stalking after her. “Come and play, Sarah. We were separate for a long time. Did you miss me? I missed you. But now we are together.”

“You’re _sick_ ,” Sarah yells, and feels good only for the second it takes her to realize that she may as well have shot up a flare herself. Oh, oh, there is no possibility Helena does not know exactly where she is. Sarah slows down her pace, slides through the shadows. Maybe she’ll double back, wait for Helena to follow her tracks, look for another exit—

“Hello, sister,” Helena breathes against the back of her neck, and then Sarah’s head hits the pillar. This close her whole vision is filled with the two of them holding hands with Amelia, desperately scribbled – then it’s gone, and she slides down to the floor. Her vision sparks. She tries to stand, fails.

“Helena,” she says, like the word is a lifeline – only there’s nothing on the other end of it. So she says it again. “ _Helena_.”

“Sarah,” Helena breathes, and grabs the back of Sarah’s shirt. Then Sarah is dragging along the floor, trying to scrabble her way to standing, failing. Helena murmurs to her as she drags her along. “Scientists made one little baby,” she says, “and then we split in two. And we forgot how to be one. But we can remember, yes?”

“No,” Sarah says shakily, more on the principle of the thing.

Helena makes a sharp, hurt sound. Then she kicks Sarah in the ribs.

Sarah curls into herself, whining, and when she’s capable of something like thought again Helena has gotten the flare gun again and dropped it near Sarah’s face. It’s too bright to look at; it whites out Sarah’s vision. She tries to turn the other way but Helena flips her back with her boot – easily, like turning over a beetle struggling on the edge of the road.

“Why do you make me hurt you?” Helena says, sounding sad and disappointed. “You are all I have. I want to be together, with you.”

“I’m not _making_ you do _anything_ ,” Sarah gasps desperately. “You crazy _bitch_ —”

Helena’s boot slams into her belly again. Sarah stops talking, just breathes. Terrible irony: their breathing sounds the same. Ragged, hurting, desperate. With a sudden sharpness Sarah remembers the gun tucked into her waistband. Helena has dropped her flare gun. Terrible irony—

“I want,” Helena says, through her awful gasps, and then again: “I _want_ —”

Sarah wants to know the end of that sentence – but Helena just crouches down in front of her, viciously fast, and fists her hand in Sarah’s hair and _yanks_. Sarah uncurls, screaming. Helena’s face fills up her whole vision. Terrible, terrible, terrible.

“Tell me,” Helena says, pleading.

“Tell you _what_ ,” Sarah says. She hates that their voices hit the same pitch, aching at the vowels.

“I don’t know,” Helena says. “I don’t know, I don’t know, but you know. You are keeping it from me. Why won’t you give it to me? Why—” She drops Sarah’s head, abruptly. Sarah knows her skull is going to hit the ground but when it does the pain is still surprising. Everything hurts; it’s too much to try and stop the crash. Breathing feels like too much. She inches her fingers towards the pistol anyways.

“You’re right,” Sarah says, coaxing her voice to gentleness. “I know the answer. Helena? I know exactly what it is.”

“I know,” Helena says. Her voice is cracking wide open with a feeling Sarah doesn’t recognize; her only consolation is that Helena probably doesn’t recognize it either. “Sarah. My _sestra_ , my twin. I always knew it was you. I could feel it.”

“You could, couldn’t you?” Sarah says gently. She rolls over onto her back – slowly, but Helena doesn’t stop her. Helena has rocked back onto her haunches and her eyes are locked on Sarah’s eyes like she knows for a fact that something in Sarah’s eyes will save her.

“It’s been lonely, hasn’t it,” Sarah continues, fishing wildly for something that will get Helena to look in Sarah’s eyes and not at Sarah’s gun. “You’ve been all alone.”

“Yes,” Helena croaks. She was raised on religion, wasn’t she. Girl’s wide open to new gospel.

“And now you’re not alone,” Sarah says, voice shaking. “You’ve got me.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Helena says, and Sarah pulls out the gun and Sarah pulls the trigger.

The impact should knock Helena backwards but somehow, for just a second, it doesn’t. Helena stays where she is. She wobbles. She looks at her chest, and then looks at Sarah. “Oh,” she says. Then, quietly and without spectacle, she crumples backwards.

Sarah stays there, lying on the ground. The flare sputters and sputters and does not go out. On the ground, Helena splutters and splutters and – Sarah looks away. She tells herself she doesn’t feel guilty. Of course she doesn’t feel guilty. What reason would she have to feel guilty?

_You lied_ , says an accusing voice in her brain.

_You didn’t lie at all_ , says another voice, even more sharply accusing than the first.

_I did what I had to_ , Sarah tells them. She tries to pull herself to standing. She fails. It’s possible Helena may have cracked a rib. Sarah lets herself fall back down, lies spread-eagled – arms out, legs out. Helena is a sad, curled-up pillbug on the ground in front of her. She looks like something that desperately wants to be held. Sarah does not even consider feeling guilty.

She watches the ceiling in the dark. She did what she had to do. This is what she had to do.

Right?

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


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